


Reversal of Fortune

by reaverattack



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:54:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reaverattack/pseuds/reaverattack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones isn't getting any. At least as far as Jim is concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jim hated to smile at other people’s misfortune, but that’s exactly what he was doing. The professor for his late night Tuesday/Thursday class got sick. So for the first time this semester, Jim had Thursday night free. By ten to seven, Jim was grinning at his good luck outside his own door, when on any other Thursday night, he’d still be in class at nine.

The door slid open with a quiet hiss when Jim entered his access code. Stepping inside, he was greeted with the sight of something he most certainly was not prepared to see.What he expected to see was Bones studying at his desk, or lounging on his bed with his PADD, or maybe even absent to work a shift at the clinic. Instead, he saw Bones laying back on his bed, leisurely thrusting up into a woman with her hands bound behind her back.

Bones’s eyes flickered up, widening in surprise when they locked with Jim’s own wide eyes. He sat bolt upright, nearly knocking heads with the woman in his lap.

“Dammit Jim!” he exclaimed as the woman shrieked. 

Jim flashed a grin at his roommate, if only to cover his shock. “I’ll just, uh, wait outside,” he announced, gesturing to the hallway, as if Bones and his lady friend didn’t know where outside was.

As the door slid shut behind him, Jim found himself standing awkwardly in the hall, very aware of the fact that he had just been sexiled. He nodded tensely to a pair of his floormates as they passed by a minute later. Just before Jim made up his mind to sit on the floor and wait it out, the door hissed open, revealing Bones and the woman, the woman fully clothed, Bones wearing only his boxers. 

“I look forward to seeing you around, Sweetheart,” Bones told her before kissing her on the cheek, an action Jim thought oddly chaste, considering what he had very recently walked in on them doing.

He waited until the woman was far enough down the hallway to be out of earshot before turning to his friend and saying, “That was fast.”

“Yeah, well, someone ruined the mood,” he muttered as they entered their shared room. 

“Sorry about that,” Jim said as he tossed his PADD on the bed and started changing out of his cadet reds. “She was hot.”

Bones snorted. “I noticed. What are you doing here anyway? Thought xenobotany didn’t end till nine.”

“The professor got sick. Class was cancelled last minute. Crappy luck it happened on the one night you actually had a girl over, though.”

Bones threw him a quizzical look, like he didn’t know how to respond to such a statement. “It’s not your fault, kid,” he offered after a moment.

Jim stretched out on his bed, watching Bones as he retreated into the bathroom. Again, Jim hated to smile on others’ misfortunes, especially his best friend’s, but he couldn’t help but find the humor in the unlikelihood that this would happen the one time he had someone over. In fact, Jim couldn’t even believe Bones had someone over at all. Especially not a woman as attractive as that one was. 

He’d never really thought about it, but on some level, he regarded Bones as largely celibate. Jim knew that was ridiculous. He knew Bones used to be married, had a daughter somewhere. But he had never actually seen him with a woman. He never heard him talk about dates or girlfriends, so over time, he had come to the conclusion that Bones wasn’t getting any.

Not that he didn’t try. Jim Kirk was a notorious flirt. Everybody knew it. But only Jim seemed to know that Bones wasn’t much better. He rolled his eyes and grumped at Jim’s flirting with everything on two (and sometimes more) legs, but he was just as bad. The only difference was that Jim was better at it. Jim was charming, attractive; he was honest enough to admit it. Not that Bones wasn’t attractive. Not that Bones was attractive. Jim didn’t find Bones attractive or unattractive. But he did know that he wasn’t charming.

Bones would thicken up his accent, then come right out and tell a woman she was as radiant as the moon or some shit. He called girls Darlin’ or Sweetheart, playing up his gentlemanly Southern charm. Jim even once heard Bones tell a woman he almost mistook her for Helen of Troy. Bones laid it on too thick. He tried too hard. And women never fell for it. Well, except for the woman who just left their room, apparently. 

Bones’s comm started beeping, and Jim rolled off his bed to answer it, as he could still hear the shower running. He had started answering Bones’s comm a few months prior, after an incident where Bones was occupied and never got the emergency call from the clinic saying they needed extra hands. Bones had then asked Jim always to answer it if he couldn’t.

“McCoy’s comm, can I take a message?”

“Leonard?” asked a woman on the line, presumably the woman who had just left.

“No. This is his roommate. He’s in the shower. Can I take a message?”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Okay. Just tell him that Missy called and I’m sorry I had to cancel tonight, and that I’ll still be out of town on Tuesday. But if he wants to get together next Thursday I’m free.”

JIm opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. She cancelled tonight? Bones had two girls lined up for tonight? And she was supposed to come over on Tuesday? Did Bones bring girls back every time Jim was stuck in class?

“Hello?” the girl asked. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” Jim finally said. “I’m here. You’re sorry for today and also now Tuesday, but you’re free next Thursday. Right?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s Mandy?”

“Missy.”

“Missy. Sorry. Got it.”

“Thanks.” With that, Missy hung up, leaving Jim completely flabbergasted in the middle of the room.

At that moment, Bones strode back into the room, water running down his chest to be absorbed by the towel at his waist. Upon reaching his dresser, he turned to Jim, who was still standing in the center of the room holding the comm, and said “Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.”

Jim’s mouth snapped shut, but he otherwise ignored the comment. “Missy called,” he told Bones.

“Yeah?” he asked, not looking up from the drawer he was rummaging through. “What’d she say?”

“She apologized for today and said she had to cancel Tuesday, too. But she’s free on Thursday.”

Bones snorted a laugh. “Missy’s a flaky one.”

“Do you do this a lot?” Jim blurted with no preamble. 

“Do what a lot, Jim?” Bones asked. He walked toward his bed, now clad in nothing but sweatpants. He swiped the comm from Jim’s hands before laying on his bed. Jim followed suit, laying on his own bed. “Jim?” Bones repeated. “Do I do what a lot?”

“Bring girls back here.”

“Depends on how you define ‘a lot.’” 

“As in every Tuesday and Thursday when I’m stuck in xenobotany.”

Bones laughed. “Not every Tuesday and Thursday.”

“But most of them?”

“Yeah,” Bones answered, no longer laughing. “Usually.”

“Is it just Missy and whoever that was today, or…?” Jim trailed off, not quite sure of his phrasing.

“Caitlin. That was Caitlin you saw today. And no, not that it’s really any of your business, but they’re not the only two.”

“How many girls do you bring back here?”

“Dammit Jim. Why do you care?” Bones asked, sitting up to look over at him.

Jim didn’t know why he cared. He didn’t care. Not really. He was just… curious.

He shrugged. 

“There’s Missy, Rita, and Kathy. Those are the girls I see somewhat regularly. There’s one nighters, too, like Caitlin today.”

Jim didn’t know what to say, so he settled for simply staring.

“What?” Bones asked. “That surprise you?”

“Yes, actually.”

Bones raised an eyebrow in question. 

“I just… I’ve never actually seen you with a girl. So I sort of assumed you weren’t... I don’t know.”

“Yeah you do. Weren’t what?”

“Weren’t getting any.”

Bones barked out a sharp laugh. “I’m probably getting much more than you are, kid.”

Jim rolled over and decided to go to sleep early. But he had to admit it. Bones was definitely getting laid a lot more than he was.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be updating every Tuesday! (Hopefully.)

Jim started when someone pulled out the chair beside him in the cafeteria on Friday and sat down.

“Hello, Jim,” a beaming Gaila greeted him.

“Do we have to sit here?” Jim looked across the table to see Uhura sit down with her lunch tray.

He flashed her a grin. “You love me.”

She rolled her eyes.

Gaila, picking up the conversation where her friend had dropped it asked, “Is anything new, Jim?”

“Well, I walked in on Bones having sex yesterday,” he told her, mouth full of food.

The Orion nodded. “Yes. Yesterday was Thursday,” she offered, as if it was the most obvious explanation in the world.

Jim looked around blankly and in exasperation, as if searching the air around him for any remaining sense in the universe.

Uhura shook her head with a knowing smile. “Gaila, you didn’t.”

Gaila shrugged, but otherwise looked uncontrite. “He is very attractive and charming. And he is very pleasing in b-”

“Okay!” Jim interrupted. “We got it, thanks.”

Gaila, eternally unperturbed, went about quietly eating her lunch. 

The three of them sat in silence, devouring their lunches as the cafeteria around them thrummed with activity. Jim didn’t taste his food. He was too far lost in thought. How in the world did Bones manage to land Gaila? She was way out of his league. To be completely honest, she was probably out of Jim’s league, too. But she was less out of Jim’s league than she was Bones’s. At least Jim had game. Well, Bones clearly had game, too. But Jim had never seen it.

“Wait. You said Bones was charming,” he said, turning his attention to Gaila once again.

She nodded. “Very much so, yes.”

Jim looked across the table at Uhura, half expecting her to shake her head, dispute her friend’s claims. Instead, she shrugged and offered a small, apologetic smile.

“You too?” Jim felt almost betrayed. 

Uhura gave him a small smile and a slight turn of her head. “You seem surprised.”

“I am,” he said flatly.

“You’re surprised that McCoy is having sex?”

“No, I’m not. I’m just…” He was surprised Bones was having sex. But was it because it was actually surprising news or because he had never thought about it. Because he hadn’t ever thought about it. He went from never having ever thought about Bones’ sex life to witnessing it firsthand. Well, not firsthand, firsthand. Whatever.

“I think he’s just surprised that Leonard is having more sex than he is,” Gaila practically sing-songed.

“I think it’s more the fact that he’s having better sex than Jim,” Uhura said.

“Ha ha. Very funny. Okay. But in all seriousness; Bones is charming. Explain it to me.”

"Well," Gaila began. "He saw me in the library and sat next to me and told me that such a beautiful woman shouldn't be sitting alone."

"And you fell for that?" Jim asked, eyes wide in disbelief. 

Gaila threw him a withering look. "I didn't just tumble into his bed right then and there."

Jim's felt his face heat. "I just meant that it's a line. And it's obviously a line," he clarified. 

“It works because he’s him. The legendary Dr. McCoy. And before he even says anything, you’re flattered because he chose to come up to you,” Gaila explained.

That couldn’t be right. Not entirely. Jim had a reputation, too. But people weren’t falling into his bed every other day and he said as much.

“Yes,” Uhura said, “but your reputation isn’t the same as McCoy’s. It isn’t a bad reputation,” she said when he opened his mouth to protest. “It’s just different.”

Gaila nodded emphatically. “You’re the legendary Jim Kirk. Call For A Good Time Jim Kirk. But Leonard is different. He’s known for being a gentleman.”

“How much of a gentleman can he be?” Jim scoffed. “It’s a one-night stand.”

“What do you do the morning after?” Uhura asked.

“Depends.” Jim shrugged. “If I’m at her place, I just sort of duck out before I overstay my welcome. If she’s at mine I offer her a shower before she leaves. Why?”

“Because apparently McCoy doesn’t do that.”

“He doesn’t,” Gaila chimed in. “Before you leave, he kisses you on the cheek and tells you to have a great day. Or something,” she added, waving her hand to show it wasn’t important. “The point is, it doesn’t feel like a one-night stand. He makes you feel special.” A small smile ghosted across her face. “You’re right, Jim. He is cheesy. But it’s sweet, and sort of cute. And everyone likes to be flattered.”

“I guess so.”

“And, Jim, I feel like you were forgetting one thing when you somehow came to the conclusion that Leonard wasn’t having sex.”

“Oh?”

“His appearance.”

Jim rolled his eyes and stood up. “Well, I have a class in ten,” he excused himself from the women.

Gaila waved, cheerful once again, while Uhura looked amusedly at her.

Jim stopped before fully turning away and asked, “Your name isn’t Kathy or Rita, is it?”

Uhura did not respond.

**Author's Note:**

> I asked my friend for title suggestions. These are some gems she suggested:  
> Jim is Better Than Kim [Kardashian]  
> Bones Has a Boner  
> Bones Has a Space Boner  
> Bones and Jim Go for a Swim  
> Jim and Bones Make Some Moans (I may have actually considered this one...)  
> Chilling to the Boner  
> Slim Jim ("Oh my god! Does he have a small wiener?! 'Cuz that could work!)"  
> My other friend came up with the actual title.


End file.
